The Association for Dietetics in SA (ADSA) is facing a global backlash for its role in the trial of scientist Prof Tim Noakes. The backlash has grown faster in the wake of an ambiguous statement that ADSA released after the comprehensive verdict of not guilty for Noakes on a charge of unprofessional conduct for his views on low-carb, high-fat (LCHF) foods.

American Ben Fury is one of many critics who has reacted with undisguised anger at ADSA’s statement. Along the way, he has identified “17 lies” that ADSA has told about its case against Noakes.

With so many lies in a single statement, Fury says that ADSA has set “a new record for being corporate stooges”. He doesn’t stop there in a damning attack on ADSA’s executive, under current president Maryke Gallagher. He calls them “quislings”. Quisling is the word for a traitor, especially one who “collaborates with an enemy occupying force for personal gain”. It comes from the name of Norway’s pro-Nazi leader Vidkun Quisling during World War 2.

Fury’s full-frontal attack on ADSA’s leadership is harsh. However, he isn’t the first to criticise ADSA for enthusiastically supporting its former president Claire Julsing Strydom and the Health Professions Council of South Africa (HPCSA) in their spectacularly failed bid to silence Noakes and LCHF. (Click here to read: Noakes exposed: the real beef that dietitians have with him.)

SUGARbriety’s Ben Fury

Fury also isn’t the first to accuse ADSA and sister dietitians’ organisations globally of destroying their own and their members’ reputations by “sleeping with the enemy”: processed food, soft-drink and drug companies.

Fury runs SUGARbriety, a nonprofit corporation and Facebook group that exposes the addictive qualities of sugar and other carbohydrate foods. He is also an audio/video engineer and a fitness trainer, who specialises in Active Isolated Stretching (AIS) and strengthening techniques for pain relief.

He joins critics who say that ADSA and other orthodox dietitians’ groups dish up dietary advice that is not science-based. Rather, they say that it is dogma. It is also based on South Africa’s official dietary guidelines. Thus, the critics say that these groups and guidelines are the real public-health danger, not Noakes and other LCHF experts internationally.

Irish blogger Dean Sterling Jones is another who has homed in on ambiguities in ADSA’s statement and its conflict of interests. In a post on his Shooting The Messenger blog, Jones has attempted to gain clarity from ADSA on compromising aspects of Strydom’s role and the HPCSA’s case against Noakes.

Foodmed.net gave ADSA the opportunity to reply to Fury’s comments before publication. However, ADSA declined through “crisis manager”, Neeran Naidoo, CEO of Hewers Communications.

Here’s what so infuriated Fury about ADSA’s statement. Fury gives ADSA’s individual comment, then his interpretation of why he believes these are lies:

By Ben Fury

Seventeen lies in a single statement: ADSA makes a new record for being corporate stooges. Let’s sum up the lies in your statement, ADSA – shall we?

LIE 1
“Ms Claire Julsing-Strydom submitted a complaint about Professor Tim Noakes to the Health Professions Council of South Africa (HPCSA) in 2014 on behalf of ADSA”

ADSA LIES!
She submitted the complaint on her own personal account.

LIE 2
“Professor Noakes did not advise the mom to continue with breastfeeding, which undermined its importance.”

ADSA LIES!
Noakes clearly stated that “Baby doesn’t eat the dairy and cauliflower. Just very healthy high-fat breast milk.” He said that the key is to ween baby onto LCHF. What part of, “very healthy high-fat breast milk” do you think does not encourage breastfeeding?

Shooting The Messenger’s Dean Jones

LIE 3
“When foods rich in carbohydrates such as whole grains and legumes are avoided and other carbohydrate food sources such as dairy, fruits and vegetables are restricted, the diet can become deficient in certain essential nutrients, such as vitamin C, B1, B3, B6, folate, magnesium and fibre.”

ADSA LIES!
False dichotomy. You equate restricting carbohydrates with restricting nutrients. A whole-food, low-carbohydrate plan is rich in nutrients. That is exactly what (Prof) Noakes recommends: a low-carbohydrate, high-nutrient approach.

LIE 4
“Dietary guidelines for feeding babies are developed by organisations such as the World Health Organisation and the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), based on a strong body of evidence.”

ADSA LIES!
The testimony of (Prof) Noakes, Dr Zoë Harcombe, Nina Teicholz, and Dr Caryn Zinn clearly laid out that there is not a strong body of evidence for such guidelines.

(Editor’s note. The WHO is also not the best example to bolster ADSA’s case for evidence-based nutrition advice and ethical practice. The WHO is a cumbersome machine when it comes to responding to the totality of scientific evidence. It is the United Nation’s public health arm and claims to fight global pandemic chronic of chronics ailments such as obesity, diabetes and heart disease. Research shows that these illnesses are lifestyle diseases primarily caused by unhealthy diets.

The WHO sensibly refuses to partner with the tobacco industry. However, its Washington-based Pan-American Health Organisation (PAHO) has relied in the past on the food and beverage industry for advice on how to fight obesity. A2012 Downey Obesity Report showed that PAHO received $150,000 from Nestle, a similar amount from Unilever and $50,000 from Coca-Cola.)

LIE 5
“The risks of experimenting with a baby’s development are immense and the long-term effect of low-carbohydrate, high-fat diets for babies (are) currently unknown.”

ADSA LIES!
We have population data for people such as the Inuit (in Canada) and Maasai (in Kenya). Data clearly show that the effect of low-carbohydrate,high-fat diets for babies is healthy growth and thriving.

LIE 6
“The concern for the health of babies was ADSA’s primary interest when ADSA lodged this complaint.”

LIE 7
“For ADSA this hearing was never about winning or losing, or standing for or against Professor Noakes. It was about protecting the health of babies and future adults,” said Maryke Gallagher, President of ADSA.

ADSA LIES!
ADSA twisted the truth into knots, outright lied, and scrabbled for the least straw to attack (Prof) Noakes. This was a vindictive, Big Food, industry-agenda-driven attempt to pillory a person who disagreed with the processed food status quo – all to protect ADSA’s position, power, prestige and money.

LIE 8, 9 and 10!
“ADSA and its members will continue to provide dietary advice that is evidence-based and in line with guidelines provided by the national Department of Health and international bodies such as the World Health Organisation. A scientific and rigorous process is used to develop international and local dietary guidelines, and the outcome of the inquiry does not mean that these guidelines will now change. ADSA will consider new approaches and practices based on scientific evidence that has been adopted by credible health organisations.”

ADSA LIES!
8. Your dietary advice is not evidence-based.
9. Your evidence procedure is not scientific and rigorous.
10. You have no intention to consider new approaches and this statement proves it.

You’re just covering your ass. Please, stop lying already. Have you no dignity?

LIE 11
“We will never compromise ADSA’s independence as a result of corporate sponsorship.”

ADSA LIES!
Really? You accept a third of your operating income from big junk food and sugary food peddlers and pretend independence? Do you really think we’re stupid enough to believe that? Or should I say, are YOU really stupid enough to believe that?

LIE 12
“Our sponsorship policy is clear on non-influence by sponsors. We do not endorse any brand, product or retail chain. There is no conspiracy between big foods and dietitians to sell unhealthy food to South Africans. A healthy population through well-balanced diets is what we strive for,” said Gallagher.

ADSA LIES!
See above. I’m not wasting any more time on this. You do the bidding of your corporate masters and help them poison the people you are sworn to protect. How you sleep at night is beyond me.

LIE 13
“It is very unfortunate that the professionalism and integrity of a number of nutrition scientists in South Africa has (sic) been unfairly questioned during this inquiry. It is ADSA’s hope that the reputation of nutrition professionals and dietitians as nutrition experts will be restored. Despite the negative sentiment, ADSA believed it had a responsibility to enquire about an issue that had such significant consequences for dietitians and other health professionals.”

ADSA LIES!
Your nutrition scientists published the absurd Naudé Review (in PLoS One in August 2014 by Stellenbosch and Cape Town University researchers). Noakes and Harcombe completely ripped it to shreds. It was an obvious “hit piece” designed to attack Noakes. Your “experts” showed up and attacked Noakes with gusto, twisting the facts with wild abandon. The reputation of those nutrition professionals and dietitians as nutrition experts will never be restored. They are quislings – collaborators with the enemies of health.

“There is no conspiracy between big foods and dietitians to sell unhealthy food to South Africans.”

ADSA LIES!
You take big money from (Coca-Cola) and other big unhealthy food (and soft-drink) companies. You repeat their lies over and over and over and… Oh, actually that doesn’t qualify as a conspiracy. You’re just hurting people right out in the open. You take big money from Big Food and Big Sugar, then you do their bidding. I take it back. Not a conspiracy. Out in the open. Being evil. Just black soul evil. OK. I mean, not OK. But not a conspiracy.

LIE 15
“We have no personal gripe with Professor Noakes. Our concern has always been about the health of babies,” said Gallagher.

ADSA LIES!
You tried to destroy the man. One does not do that to one they respect and have no personal gripe with. As for the health of babies. Nonsense. I covered that above. He tweaked you, and you decided to squash him.

@nicovddussen@ADSA_RD Won’t be long when ADSA will face Class Action for keeping Diabetics chronically ill on carbs when they could have reversed on LCHealthyF

LIE 16
“South Africans have also been confused by the ebb and flow of this divisive nutrition debate and the inconsistent nutritional advice provided over many years. That is unfortunate.”

ADSA LIES!
No, ADSA. That is by design. Your corporate masters make billions by selling processed sugary garbage foods. Keeping people confused is their bread and butter. And ADSA helps make that possible.

LIE 17
“I’m pleased this is over and we can now focus on other urgent nutrition challenges we have in South Africa,” concluded Gallagher.

ADSA LIES!
Your response to this affair proves you’ve learned nothing. Diabetes and obesity are wrecking the health of South Africa, and you are still warbling on with platitudes that don’t help the outcome. You are worse than useless, ADSA. You are the problem. Get right or get gone. We’ve public health problems to be solved here. And you, ADSA’s Ms (Maryke) Gallagher, are not helping.

Prof Este Vorster

Editor’s note: One of the biggest ironies and Kafka-esque elements in the Noakes case comes in a comment at the end of ADSA’s statement on its website, from Christelle Badenhorst. ADSA’s case against Noakes was that he breached South Africa’s official paediatric nutrition guidelines, which its honourary life member North-West University Prof Hester “Estee” Vorster wrote.

Vorster also wrote a secret report which the HPCSA commissioned and used to charge Noakes. And she later became an expert witness against him. However, Vorster’s guidelines for infant feeding, align clearly and closely with LCHF – except for her advice for babies older than 12 months. That’s when she adds t that parents should “make starchy foods the basis of most meals” for their offspring.

ADSA resolutely refuses to say why it supports that advice and what – if any – science there is to back it up.

An Australian blogger, who goes under the pseudonym Macro Four, endorses Fury’s sentiments with reference to Lie 13. Macrofour has type 2 diabetes. He has titled his website, Take Back Your Health to Reverse Chronic Disease. He speaks from bitter personal experience of the effects of conventional medical and dietary advice on his health. Consequently, he says that this advice kept him fat and sick. As a result, Macro Four decided to change his diet and has come off all medication. He has also lost all the weight he needed to lose and has reversed all symptoms of his condition.

He says that the case against Noakes has backfired on his accusers. It has also trashed ADSA’s reputation and the flimsy evidence that it holds as “religious dietary laws”. “It is an obvious deflection technique,” Macro Four says. “ADSA needs to repair its own reputation.”

He also says that no amount of spin-doctoring will change the facts of the matter. Among these are that the evidence Noakes tendered at the hearing has left ADSA bankrupt of any authority.

“Who would see one of (ADSA’s) members now and have confidence?” Macro Four asks.

I disagree about “Only the wealthy”. We are on a reduced carbs increased fat diet – not #LCHF. Our food bill actually reduced from the typical “ADSA guidelines” diet.

Regarding the people you claim got sick, please communicate the cases to the relevant authorities. Surely, if the diet is as dangerous as you indicate, you have a duty to get the real facts to the surface – so all of us can be able to make real informed decisions on our health.

This article is rather glib. Noakes was the radical advocate of unfettered “carbo loading” in the past (coca cola, white pasta etc were all fine). Now fat is fine, carbs are bad – including complex carbs, unrefined carbs which includes a fresh tomato as a carb, root veg and grains and pulses. Only the EXTREMELY WEALTHY CAN AFFORD TO EAT THIS WAY. Secondly, the court case did not find anything in respect of Noakes’ dietary recommendations. It found that he had not breached professional ethics by giving advice in a casual way from a website. If this article accuses ASDA or individuals in ASDA of working with the food industry, perhaps the question needs to be posed about Noakes and the “real food” movement including the “paleo food” movement relationship with the meat industry. I personally have seen a family member be rushed to hospital with an acute gall bladder crisis, while “noaxing.” I have also seen a family member start arthritis while doing an Atkins diet, and a friend start expressing kidney problems while on an Atkins diet. The planet is far too populated for a paleo or high fat diet to be anything other than an extreme indulgence for a very very wealthy minority, and in the long run such a diet is very likely to be problematic for a significant section of this population iro kidney function, etc. I personally use qualified dieticians and think that their skills and knowledge are grossly undervalued while women’s magazine repeat half truths so frequently that they are eventually believed to be fact!

@Kathryn Peck WRONG. First, the most nutritionally dense foods are mega-cheap. Sardines, eggs, and offal. Second, without the carb-hunger to drive obesity levels of eating, people of _normal_ BMI who have the 21st century sedentary lifestyles need far fewer calories than the crazy recommendations from the medical profession. I am a 65 year old man who dropped from 180 lbs to 140 (64-ish kg) and my daily calorie requirements are around 1000. You are simply assuming that people continue to wolf down huge amounts of food when their energy requirements are met by fat; they do not. What do you say regarding the masses of evidence that show that carbs do immense damage? I have been tracking my blood lipid data and it has vastly improved since I gave up grains. What do you say about the fact that grains contain lectins and phytates which inhibit nutrient take up? I suspect you believe what you _want_ to believe like my tobacco-addicted mother who refused to admit that it was killing her.

Agreed. It appears to be only those who want to push low-fat, high-carb foods who tell patients or clients such as Kathryn that LCHF foods are expensive. It’s one of the myths they use to sustain their belief in conventional nutritional “wisdom”. All those I know who have adopted LCHF lifestyles say that they spend less money on more nutrient-dense foods. It’s a win-win for them. It’s not a message that dietitians, doctors and food and drug industries that push low-fat, high-carb products like to pass on to their patients and customers. However, ethical doctors and dietitians would look at the totality of evidence, not the just the bits that suit their belief system. They will also give patients all the options, not just the ones that bring them back for repeat business.LCHF is one option for health care, not sick care. There are others. Low-fat, high-carb isn’t one of them for many people.

Kathryn, your knowledge is very superficial and your opinions are just plain wrong. I’m not extremely wealthy, or anywhere near, yet I eat a low carb diet and it’s done me an immense amount of good. This way of eating saves me money because the higher fat content satiates the appetite and I no longer eat three meals a day. The problems you’ve supposedly seen and decided to associate with low carb and Atkins are a result of your clear bias.

If this case has shown anything, it’s how useless and ignorant those ‘qualified’, half illiterate dietitians are. Feel free to trust the people who have driven the incredible decline into obesity and diabetes that followed from their low-fat advice.

As for Tim Noakes changing his mind, that’s what intelligent and courageous people do when they see new evidence. It’s what scientists are supposed to do. Clinging onto the old orthodoxy just means making more mistakes.

I’m sorry, Kathryn, that family / friends seem to have unfortunate experiences with Atkins/Banting but you have not indicated how long they were on the “standard” diet – I suspect it was for many many years . I too can cite innumerable people who have arthritis, cancer, obesity,diabetes etc but they are following the standard diet! Although it is possible that there will be a very small population where a very low LCHF may not suit, by far the majority of people are now suffering from the standard diet! – especially as they get older- as insulin resistance is often developed over years and decades. I agree that the world is overpopulated but cattle, sheep, goats etc can graze in areas unsuitable for crops and in addition don’t need the tons of pesticides that eventually poison not only the food chain but the land itself. As for the affordability of LCHF other people have already commented on how it is affordable. I will add only one thing – can you afford not to? The cost of medication is immense, let alone the cost of being physically debilitated from the results of diabetes etc – particularly the low-income homes and especially in countries that do not have a National Health Service.

You make many important points here, Albany. It is far more likely that anyone who has problems on an LCHF, Atkins, Banting style diet is probably not following it properly. A higher intake of saturated fat can be and usually is a serious problem if people continue to eat a high-carb diet. Most people don’t want to change their eating habits. They are addicted to sugar and other carbs. They say they are eating an LCHF diet when they are not. Not surprisingly then, critics of LCHF don’t bother to find out exactly what the person was eating before using the problems as an excuse to knock LCHF. It’s not co-incidence that that kind of reasoning comes from people and dietitians who are wedded to conventional nutritional “wisdom”. It’s also those in the pockets or thrall of food and drug companies. These have made and continue to make billions globally from low-fat, high-carb foods. They need the repeat business that comes from conventional, standard, so-called “balanced” diets. These diets create sick care, not health care. Just look at the results of standard dietary advice for the past 4 decades: pandemics of obesity, diabetes, heart disease, cancer and more recently dementia. Doctors are calling dementia diseases type 3 diabetes because of the strong link with low-fat, high-carb diets. Anyone who comes out in open support of these diets, against LCHF, is more interested in profits than patients. It’s criminal.

Thanks Marika, I absolutely agree with you, so many people spend a lifetime on standard advice and then attribute their illness to a few weeks of ‘an Atkins diet’ when in fact their disease had to have been developing/festering over many years before becoming apparent. You are right LCHF is not a ‘diet’ – it is a way of controlling your own healthcare. As you have pointed out so many times before you can follow the SCIENCE or follow the money! Thanks also for all your hard work in keeping us all informed. You might want to check out a couple of points I added to Ben Fury’s list on the ADSA website. I look forward to your next report.

Albany, you’re quite right. The cost to the individual, the economy and our health systems of the standard low-fat diet is immense. And we need to remember the unhappiness of people being needlessly ill and overweight.

This only makes financial sense to pharma and the companies that sponsor the shamefully stupid and compromised ADSA.

Much of my food comes from farm to shop to me, and cuts out all the middlemen who scrape off the profit and use some of it to sponsor dieticians. I may pay a bit more for quality food but then it’s a wash as I no longer need all those processed carbs, or “vegetable” oils, or statins, or PPIs, or antidepressants.

When I was young I ate an Ornish-style low fat high carb grain based diet, and that was when I passed my first gallstone and had my first attack of gout. I continued dutifully eating “low fat” while “basing every meal on starchy carbohydrates” and naturally the mass of gallstones I finally had extracted were blamed on “eating too much fat” when in fact the major increase is due to eating INSUFFICIENT fat which inhibits the gallbladder from contracting, allowing the unused bile to crystallise.

Likewise my steadily increasing blood pressure and appalling lipids were blamed on “too much fat” but it was only AFTER I was sent to a dietician and had even more fat eliminated and replaced by even more carbs that my health declined rapidly and I gained weight.

All she could do was accuse me of “failing to comply” with the diet, but curiously when I actually DID fail to comply, everything improved and even normalised. Frankly their qualifications aren’t worth the paper they are wiped on.

N = millions.

Now as if they hadn’t lost all credibility, they lose even more by going after Noakes AGAIN.

I wrote elsewhere that when they were in a hole their response was to buy a JCB (backhoe). Now they are resorting to tactical nuclear weapons.

Chronic medication merely supports symptoms of heart disease and diabetes but offers no hope of cure, whereas those of us who have dared to convert to the HFLC life style are living proof of the truth that has been exposed.

As a person who loves all forms of religious wisdom, I do not like the reference to ‘Religious Dietary Laws” but would rather understand the problem in the light of Prof Jacques Ellul’s explanation of Technology in his book called The Technical Age. Technology is not an absolute truth, rather it is a set of axioms that must be assaulted by science. It is an established, (and too often entrenched) methodology. Science is a method of investigation. It investigates the truth, it brings objectivity to religion and also technology, but science is also a long way from the truth in certain areas. If it declares its self to be the absolute truth, it ceases to become science, as it loses it’s grounding in philosophy.
The ADSA status quo is little more than a No Name Brand Technology , and the provenance of it’s producers is confounded by pseudo science.